A vision for British Orienteering – a consultation process

Introduction and summary

At a recent meeting, the Council decided that it would be beneficial to develop a vision for British Orienteering.

Council also decided that there should be wide consultation with the membership and a range of methods is being employed to do that, including this circular, which is being sent to all of British Orienteering’s Constituent Associations and Clubs.

You are asked to discuss this document in your Association or Club and send us feedback, preferably by e-mail to vision@britishorienteering.org.uk, although written communications sent to the British Orienteering office will also be welcome.

As we are anticipating a considerable volume of feedback, we do not plan to reply to each submission.  Instead, we will publish a summary of the feedback received.

We would like your feedback as soon as possible, but certainly by 15 December 2006.

What is a vision, and why should we have one for British Orienteering?

A vision is a way of articulating in a reasonably concise way the situation we would like the sport to be in at the end of, say, the next 10 years.  The vision enables us to decide the priorities of possible action programmes: if a particular action programme does not support or enable the vision, or in some way clearly move us toward the vision, that programme will be given a much lower priority.

This ability to set priorities is especially necessary where our resources, human and financial, are limited, as they currently are.

In addition, this means that the vision must be stated carefully, as otherwise things we would like to do could wrongly be made a low priority or not done at all.

Since the vision is setting out in summary where we would like our sport to be in the future, it can act as a way of encouraging greater team work and co-operation as we work together to achieve the vision.

Having a vision can also be important in gaining support from outside the sport, as it tells organisations, companies or people that this is a sport which has thought about where it’s going, and is keen to make progress.

The vision could be in many formats, but would usually be written as text, ideally reasonably briefly, so that it can be easily understood, and is “approachable”.

If the vision is also inspirational, that can be helpful, as it may well at a later stage encourage support from people not involved in its formulation.

What might the vision contain?

Since the vision is about where we want to be, as opposed to where we are, it should usually reflect desired change, unless there needs to be significant work to maintain the current status, but can contain elements which are already mostly achieved if thought important enough.

An example might be the age range of orienteers: we would probably justifiably feel that orienteering was already practised by all ages of participant, so, unless that was under threat, it might not figure in the vision.  However, if we saw that it was important to increase significantly the proportion of participants aged between 20 and 40, we might reflect that in the vision statement.  We could also keep eg “Practised by all ages” in the vision if it was a vital part of the vision we wanted to communicate.

There seems to be support for including these three areas in the vision:

  1. The size of British orienteering (number of participants) [eg 20,000 regular orienteers; it should be possible to determine a target when the results of the 2007 Membership Scheme are known.]
  2. Whether orienteering is growing in popularity in Britain [eg orienteering was growing (eg 10%) year by year]
  3. What the public profile of orienteering is [eg widespread and accurate understanding of the basic concept of orienteering; whether orienteering was recognised as a sport offering an enjoyable mental and physical challenge, at elite level comparable with more widely practised sports; how well run the sport is; whether orienteering is a leader in environmental matters; etc]

Some possible areas that could also appear in the vision might include:

  1. Whether international success at competitive level is important [eg British athletes regularly in the top 10 in the world in all age categories]
  2. Whether there is a structure that encourages everyone to improve their skills and have fun from their participation [eg skills development pathways]
  3. What the status and recognition of those who helped run orienteering is [eg most participants active as volunteers]
  4. Whether orienteering is a culture where people’s welfare is considered [eg risks well managed, including those arising from Child protection issues]
  5. Whether orienteering events create a welcoming environment to all [eg events held where they are accessible, variety of type of event, age classes etc].
  6. Whether orienteering is a sport that offered an enjoyable mixture of physical exercise and social interaction [eg post-event social opportunities available]

It can be a real challenge to decide which direction we want to go in, or at least what the priorities are, and then to express them succinctly.  However, it can pay huge dividends in enabling us to focus on a clear direction for the sport, and gain momentum as we see progress being made towards the vision.

What format should your feedback take?

To try and make it easier for you to give feedback and for us to review it, it is suggested that your feedback be in four sections (you can choose to feedback in one, two, or any number of these sections) as follows:

  1. Whether you agree that dimensions 1-3 above should figure in the vision.
  2. Which dimensions (if any) to the vision you would propose other than those listed as 1-9 above.
  3. Which of the dimensions 4-9 (or more as suggested in B.) you feel should figure in the vision.
  4. What comments you have about the example vision shown below.  You might even wish to propose something!

Example vision

Orienteering - a sport widely understood and highly regarded for its physical and mental challenges and its care for the environment; a growing sport that is accessible and attractive to all.

We look forward to hearing from you.